I had a passionate crush on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Could it still thrill me 19 years later?

Better than Skyrim. Fight me.
- Bethesda games get better the farther back you go, almost objectively until you get to Morrowind, only after that is it arguable.
- Absolutely. I do miss having an unlimited favorites menu like they added in skyrim and as much as I enjoy having a dedicated magic slot, I miss dual weilding/casting. I'm really hoping there's a mix of the two systems in ES6. I also wish there was a survival mode in Oblivion, I always enjoy having to manage food/water/sleep/temperature even if it is kind of trivial. I'm sure I can find a mod for that though.
- 100%
- Is it? I didn't care for Skyrim but trying it in VR was amazing. What am I missing in Oblivion?
  
  Oblivion is very systems driven, has better character building, more diverse gameplay, wasn't afraid to let the player get a little silly, generally had better writing, they were less afraid of whimsy, and the world felt like it could exist without you. Skyrim felt like a theme park or movie set focused entirely around you and they were afraid to let you cut loose.
  *All of this in theory, the level scaling made oblivion borderline impossible to play and it is still fundamentally bad in that Bethesda way.
  
  I play mages, so the real issue for me is that the magic system in Oblivion is far superior. Being able to craft your own spells is absolutely fantastic. Skyrim cheaped out by removing the complexity and spell crafting, and Shouts didn't really serve as a decent replacement.
  Combat with the remaster is exceptionally smooth and natural, and I honestly preferred the original Oblivion system than Skyrim's - which always felt janky to me - like it was trying to use Fallout mechanics to show off, not because it made for a better combat experience.
  The questing and storyline strikes an excellent balance between open world discovery and directed play - Skyrim's felt disconnected, and I often lost track of exactly what was going on or why. You also get far more background and story - books in Skyrim are usually one or two pages long. Books in Oblivion usually are around 20 - 30 pages.
  The remaster absolutely kicks ass - visually, it's easily on par with Skyrim graphics, and the audio is fantastic. The performance is far better as well, but it still retains a lot of the old school flavor with the simple interface. I'm really enjoying it thus far - it's been long enough since i played the original on the 360 that it's like a new game.
  Plus, it's got some amazing early 00's voice talent - Patrick Stewart plays the Emperor, and despite the lines being a bit janky at time due to how they were recorded, the actors did a really good job.
  All in all, it's AAA title from a time when that meant something, and with the modern engine and graphics, it's a masterpiece that outshines many of the top titles out today.
  
  Better quests, and more unique/varied location types and towns.

I have to hand it to Bethesda and Virtuos. I was never really much of a fan of Oblivion, only playing it for a few hours and never finishing it (average TES Player moment), but this is an excellently handled remaster that, although it makes less than stellar changes in some places (or in some cases, no changes and just the mechanics of the base game, such as the overly "slidey" feeling movement, that are eventually easily fixable thanks to mods), ultimately they have done an excellent job.
I kinda hate saying it, but credit where credit is due. You earned it this time, Todd.
I only hope Bethesda can learn the correct lessons from this (pipedream) and make their next works even better. Very well done and I look forward to seeing Morrowind get the same treatment (I am actually delusional and huffing massive quantities of Hopium lol).

I'm totally sucked in and I find this iteration of the power treadmill to be enthralling. Love it.

I'm only here to shit on the clickbait title.